starfishstar (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
starfishstar) wrote2016-02-21 01:43 pm
starfishstar) wrote2016-02-21 01:43 pm
Raise Your Lantern High, chapter 11: Midwinter Nights
RAISE YOUR LANTERN HIGH
Summary: In which Remus and Tonks fight battles, arrest criminals, befriend werewolves, overcome inner demons and, despite it all, find themselves a happy ending. A love story, and a story of the Order years. (My Remus/Tonks epic, which has been years in the making! This is the second half of the story, set in the Half-Blood Prince year.)
Chapter 11: Midwinter Nights
Believe in me
We’re a mystery
And I’ll meet you
If you’ll meet me
–Lindsay Phillips, We’re a Mystery
“You have got to be kidding,” Tonks groaned.
Savage was back from his latest check-in at the Ministry with Robards, and had returned with the news that Scrimgeour wanted them to keep a closer eye on Dumbledore’s movements. From now on, they were to tail the headmaster discreetly whenever he left the castle.
What idiocy. Even setting aside the small matter that Tonks doubted anyone could tail Dumbledore if he didn’t choose to allow it, surely as Aurors they had more important things to do than spy on the Hogwarts headmaster? In the last week alone they’d twice had to fend off Dementors from Hogsmeade, and Tonks was feeling on edge.
“Orders are orders,” Dawlish shrugged. “Scrimgeour’ll have his reasons.”
Tonks glanced at Proudfoot, who could usually be depended on for a modicum of scepticism. But he shrugged too and said, “Dumbledore is a great wizard, nobody’s disputing that, but even he shouldn’t be acting outside of Ministry sanction. If he’s going to keep insisting on doing things his own way, we’re going to have to keep an eye on him.”
Tonks gritted her teeth, but managed not to say anything contrary aloud. She was getting better at that. When she got off duty that evening, though, she dashed by the Post Office to send off an owl to Kingsley, carrying a note that read, You hear about this latest idiocy? Shall I inform the man in question, or are you taking care of it? T.
Kingsley’s note by return owl read, Have informed the man in question. Doubt anyone could get one over on him anyway, but never hurts to be prepared. I appreciate your vigilance, as a friend of ours would say. K.
Tonks shook her head wryly as she looked down at the message in hand. These days, even their messages that weren’t officially encrypted came out sounding as if they were in code all the same.
Being a double agent for a secret organisation that battled evil might sound awesome – and in truth it was awesome, if only Tonks were ever able to stop moving long enough to step back and look at the big picture – but so often the day to day work of it amounted to nothing but frustrations and petty stumbling blocks, and the extra legwork required to clear those frustrations and stumbling blocks out of the way. Such as, for example, the illogic of her colleagues in one job being required to spy on her chief colleague in her other job, and Tonks having to find a way to navigate the space between the two.
Tonks sighed, blew a lock of mousy brown hair out of her eyes with an impatient puff of air, and sent the owl winging back to the Post Office.
A few days later, Tonks was at the tiny table in her flat, devouring a very late evening meal after a long shift, when a horrible screeching noise startled the knife and fork from her hands and sent them clattering to the tabletop. The screeching sound was coming from her Aurorlog, its alarm shrieking at high pitch.
“All the magical brainpower in the world and we can’t seem to make them go off at a normal volume,” Tonks grumbled as she shoved up her sleeve to expose her Auror wristband.
Then she caught sight of its face and flung herself up from her chair. The hand position indicated Dawlish and the colour flashing on the dial said he’d been rendered unconscious.
Tonks threw on a cloak, grabbed her broom and kicked off straight from the sill of her attic window, pointing herself in the direction that the metal arrow on her Aurorlog indicated was where Dawlish – or at least the sister Aurorlog Dawlish wore – would be found.
Tonks landed outside the Hogwarts gates to find Savage, who had been on Hogsmeade patrol duty this evening, already bending over Dawlish, who’d been on Dumbledore watch. Savage cast a strong Rennervate, and Dawlish groaned and pushed himself up from the ground as Proudfoot swooped in to join them, also broom-borne.
“What happened?” Savage demanded.
“That confounded man,” Dawlish groaned, gingerly touching the back of his head. “He knew I was there – I don’t know how he knew, I was perfectly Disillusioned, I promise you – and he Stunned me before I could react.”
Was this what they’d come to, Dumbledore and the Ministry openly attacking each other? For about half a second after Scrimgeour had started as Minister, Tonks had hoped all of that stupidity was over. Instead, the Order and the Aurors were still just as much on opposing sides as they had been under Fudge.
It was stupid, so stupid, to be at odds like this when what mattered more than anything was that they ought to all be on the same side, fighting Voldemort.
“I’m so sorry,” Tonks said to Dawlish, as she leaned in to give him a hand up from the hard ground, and she meant it more than he could know.
As the four of them walked back to the village together, Tonks wondered if they were going to make her their emissary again, send her up to the castle to complain at Dumbledore once he returned from wherever it was he’d gone. But what exactly would she say? I know you’ve got important stuff of your own to do and the last thing you need is some bumbling Ministry employee following you around, but also if you could possibly help it do you think you could please stop hexing my colleagues?
In the end, though, they decided instead to send a Floo message to Robards, who sent back a return note promising to raise the matter with Scrimgeour, who would take it up with Dumbledore.
Ministry bureaucracy at its finest. Tonks almost wished they had sent her to complain directly to Dumbledore and have done with it.
Each day that went on like this – supposed allies failing to work together, supposed Dark-wizard-catchers failing to catch anyone but the middlemen – only tightened the knot of frustration that lived constantly in the pit of Tonks’ stomach.
– – – – –
The morning after the Samhain bonfire Remus woke early, before any of the others were awake. He pushed himself up from his sleeping canvas and looked around at the sleeping pack. His breath formed vaporous ghosts in the air, even within the shelter of the lean-to.
The night’s dreams had been a confusion of images and were already fading, but a last sensory impression remained, a feeling of being cocooned in a warm bed in a cosy flat – the London flat of a certain bright-haired Auror, a place Remus had come to know well the previous year, and which he had all too quickly learned to associate with safety and warmth and a sense of belonging. He pushed such thoughts firmly away during his waking hours, but his dreaming mind found treacherous ways of slipping past his barriers.
Why did his mind slip away to Tonks the moment he left it unguarded? Remus had told himself over and over to let go. He had told Tonks, too, that there could be nothing more between them. So why couldn’t he seem to convince himself of the same?
The loss of James and Lily, even the loss of Sirius – those were hard, dull aches that seemed to have been with Remus so long, they’d become simply a part of his being. They were no less painful for that, but at least their ache was familiar.
The absence of Tonks was different, sharp and immediate, and if Remus was honest with himself, he knew exactly why: Unlike all the others Remus had lost, Tonks was still alive. Remus could see her and speak to her any time, if only he would allow it of himself.
But he couldn’t allow it.
All he could do was to keep setting those thoughts aside, and setting them aside, over and over in the hope that one day his attempted forgetting might finally take hold.
As November progressed and the cold grew deeper, it became clear to Remus that the peaceful solidarity of Samhain had only briefly patched over a growing sense of discontent within the pack. The younger ones were restless, and more than once Remus overheard snatches of whispered conversation amongst them, as they compared their own Alpha’s ways with rumours they’d picked up about freedoms allowed in other packs. Their dissatisfaction was never expressed overtly, of course, not here within the hierarchy of the pack. But as the winter weather deepened, the young ones grew increasingly, quietly, disconcertingly sullen.
Narun, Adair and Tamara, especially, had a tendency to draw away from the others, talking intently amongst themselves but trailing off when any of the older adults came near. Another time, Remus stumbled across a heated conversation between young Narun and Jack, who was nearly the Alpha’s age, both their voices quiet but angry.
The Alpha now grouped the pack members differently when he sent them out to hunt and gather, pairing young ones with older ones to accompany them, rather than allowing two or more of the young ones to go off together unsupervised. But the whispered conversations and flare-ups of disagreement continued.
One day, Remus was sent out with Ashmita and Adair – both an older partner and a younger one, he noted wryly, since he himself didn’t quite count as either within the structures of the pack – and he witnessed firsthand as Adair attempted to convince Ashmita of his reasoning.
“But think of Mother,” Adair pressed. “She’s advanced in years, yet she has to live out here and sleep on the cold ground, eating nothing but rabbits. As our elder, doesn’t she deserve more? Doesn’t she deserve comfort, real prey, real respect?”
Ashmita shut him down instantly. “You have no idea what you’re talking about, idiot child,” she snapped, baring her teeth at Adair in a startlingly wolf-like way, and that was the end of that conversation.
But still, still, a disquieting discontent continued to roil beneath the daily life of the pack.
At least they all still came together at the full moon. Remus was never precisely glad when the moon reached its fullest phase and tore his body apart, but he’d rarely felt as relieved on the morning after a full moon as he did now, watching the pack drift about the camp, their bodies still recovering but their interactions with each other looser, less strained, thanks to the sense of solidarity that came from a night of running free together.
For the first time, Remus truly wished he could retain more than the vaguest of sense memories from the “wolf mind” he was forced to inhabit for the duration of a full moon night. He would have liked to know what had transpired between their wolf selves to return this sense of truce to the pack. Who had play-fought, who had worked together to bring down prey? What alliances had been forged or reinforced in the course of the night?
He didn’t ask those questions aloud, though. The current calm felt too delicate.
Remus did, however, get a chance to discuss the growing tensions in the pack, while out hunting with Jack a few days after the full moon. Jack was the one who’d first given Remus his pack name, “Quiet,” and Jack was diametrically everything Remus was not – brawny, loud and forthright.
Jack had also, inexplicably, taken a shine to Remus, with a brotherly fondness that had gradually become evident behind the teasing. He was the one who’d suggested they hunt together this afternoon. Remus was hopeless with a bow and arrow and suspected he always would be, at least without the benefit of a wand to charm the arrow straight, but Jack seemed determined to get Remus to the level of being at least passable at the basics.
They crunched across the frosted ground. Remus was wrapped in his cloak, as well as a crude waistcoat of rabbit pelts Serena had fashioned for him out of pity when she saw that he didn’t have anywhere near adequate clothing for a winter of living out of doors.
Jack was relentlessly cheerful, clearly relishing the physical exertion and the scent of snow on the air. Once he’d got past the initial brash impression, Remus had found he appreciated Jack’s plainspoken manner. He could count on Jack to tell it like it was, and not be offended by questions.
“The younger ones in the pack seem restless,” Remus ventured, as they crunched along.
Jack shrugged. “Young ones are always restless.”
Since Jack didn’t seem offended by this line of questioning, Remus pushed on. “They’ve heard the rumours about Greyback and the kind of life he’s supposedly offering, and they’re tempted.”
“Well, that’s the fallacy of youth, isn’t it? Thinking things are always better somewhere else.”
“You aren’t worried they’ll decide to join him?”
To Remus’ surprise, Jack laughed. “Pack affiliations shift, Quiet. If any of the young ones are desperate to go joining Greyback’s pack – and the more fools them, if they are – then nothing’s stopping them.”
Remus stared at him and almost tripped over a tussock of grass. “But – what happens to the pack, if its entire younger generation leaves? You would let that happen?”
“Quiet. City Wolf. Understand one thing. I am not letting anything happen. I am not making anything happen. It is Alpha’s to decide how to run his pack. And I promise you, Alpha hasn’t got where he is by being a fool. Believe that, even if you won’t believe anything else we keep telling you.”
Jack tossed a wolfish grin Remus’ way. Then, before Remus could think what to answer, Jack sighted a hare a hundred yards ahead of them, gave a shout and bounded after it, and philosophical concerns gave way for the time being to an archery demonstration.
Remus, too, came to find these days on the open moor invigorating, as he grew more accustomed to the outdoor life and the cold. As late autumn slipped into the first cool breath of winter, Remus spent many days out of doors, hunting with Jack or the others.
He also slipped away when he could to his “quiet spot,” as the others teasingly called it, the bit of the moor where the ground was uneven and water trickled out of the exposed earth. The ground was frozen now, with solid ice where before there had been water, but it was still pleasant to be alone there in the quiet of the winter moor.
It was near the end of November, on a day when Remus had seized one such rare moment to himself, enveloped in blissful silence under the wide, white sky, when a dove-coloured barn owl swooped down and startled him.
Surprised, Remus reached out one hand automatically to untie the scroll the owl offered him on an outstretched leg. This duty discharged, the owl hooted agreeably and rose again to turn lazy circles above Remus’ head.
Dear Remus, he read, in Dumbledore’s unmistakeable spiky script.
This owl has instructions to deliver the letter only when you are alone and unobserved. The last thing I would wish would be to compromise your mission, but at the same time, I would be remiss if I failed to make contact at all, when you have been away so long. I hope this approach to the matter may serve as a happy medium.
I do hope this letter finds you well, Remus, hale and hearty still. Please do not compromise your own safety and well-being for the sake of your mission.
Only if these first queries can be answered in the affirmative do I proceed to the next ones: How does your mission proceed? Do you feel it to be worthwhile that you remain? If there is any information you wish to share that is not too sensitive for communication via owl, I will be its happy recipient.
Now, to the third reason for my writing. Molly has impressed upon me in no uncertain terms that if there is any way physically possible in this world for you to attend Christmas at the Burrow this year, then your presence there is most ardently desired. If you think your new acquaintances can spare you for a few days, the Weasleys would be very glad to see you.
And if you are indeed able to get away, I myself would be grateful for the opportunity to exchange a few words on your progress so far.
I have enclosed additional parchment and a quill with this letter, should you wish to reply by return owl.
Humbly yours,
Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore
Well. Remus looked again at the letter in his hand, then up at the grey-white November sky. Then he laughed out loud, to the consternation of the owl still circling him.
Of all the things that were absurd about his current life, this surely ranked high: to be standing in the middle of the open moor in a rabbit-fur waistcoat and old clothes that grew more tattered by the month, catching a few precious moments away from the tumult of living in small wooden lean-to on a remote moor with a dozen werewolves as winter approached, and then to receive, delivered to his hand by owl post, such a gentlemanly invitation from Albus Dumbledore.
Remus calmed his slightly hysterical mirth and returned his attention to the scroll in his hand.
Once fully unfurled, he found it did indeed include a second, blank piece of parchment rolled inside the first, with a small self-inking quill dangling from a ribbon threaded through a corner of the parchment. Small, that is, but not so small that it would require magical expansion in order to be usable, because Dumbledore of course knew Remus wouldn’t have his wand with him. The man really did think of everything.
Dear Professor Dumbledore, Remus wrote, unable to address this professor he so respected and admired as “Albus,” even after all these years.
It is very good of you to seek me out – I appreciate it greatly. I appreciate your owl’s discretion as well.
And it is good, I think, that you have waited until now to ask these questions. In my first weeks here, I might have been tempted to answer that it is all for nothing and I might as well slink back to London in defeat. Now, I find I don’t believe that any longer. I am making inroads here, if slowly, gaining trust as well as improving my own understanding. I still don’t know that I can promise to do any good by being here, but neither do I think my presence will do any harm. If it is amenable to you, I will continue on here for a while yet.
I have little concrete information to report so far. F.G. continues to make the promises we know he has been making all along. Many even beyond his direct sphere of influence are enamoured of what he preaches, the younger ones especially. Yet there are some who choose to remain neutral, who do not feel this to be their fight and who are happy with their lives as they are. Still, at present there are few, if any, who would actively take our side. Indeed, from their perspective, there is little reason to.
As to the other point you raised, please tell Molly nothing would please me more, but I shall have to see whether it is possible. Perhaps you could send another owl in a fortnight or so, and I shall try to have an answer by then. I hate to impose on you this way, but at the moment my options for communication are limited.
If a time away from here proves to be possible, I would of course be very glad to meet with you and discuss in more detail what I’ve learned so far.
Yours most sincerely,
Remus Lupin
Remus rolled up the letter, tied it and sent it off again with the owl, all with a strange sense of unreality. The very thought of London or the Burrow, of Molly and Arthur and their family, seemed like something out of another life. Even Christmas sounded slightly foreign, like an unfamiliar custom from a country he’d once visited.
But sooner than he would have expected, Remus got his answer on the possibility of leaving the pack to visit the Burrow, and it came from an unexpected quarter.
It was two days after a full moon and the December wind was biting, finding its way in through every chink and crack in the lean-to walls. Remus felt the chill acutely, and it seemed as though he’d been living with a slight chest cold for about as long as he could remember, although in reality it had probably only been a week or two.
The Alpha had directed Remus to stay back at the camp to watch over elderly Anna. Remus took this, cautiously, as a sign of trust, since this was the first time the Alpha had assigned this important role to Remus alone, rather than pairing him with another member of the pack.
As Anna dozed in her hammock, which now hung between two posts within the lean-to, Remus tended the fire and pondered that morning’s events.
A disagreement had flared between Ashmita and Narun, sudden, sharp and angry, as the pack were waking for the day. Open conflict was exceedingly rare, which made it all the more of a shock to see tiny Ashmita and young Narun standing almost nose to nose, their voices pitched low but fierce.
Before Remus could parse what their argument was about, it was over, the Alpha stepping between Ashmita and Narun and breaking up the spat with a few short words uttered in his most dangerous growl. No discussion, no arbitration, simply a swift and final judgement. Ashmita had bowed her head deferentially and nodded; Narun had slunk away, the tail he didn’t have in human form almost visibly tucked between his legs. It was clear to see the Alpha’s ruling had been in Ashmita’s favour.
“That is the way of the pack,” Anna’s voice said behind Remus now. He whirled around to see her wizened face peering at him over the edge of the hammock.
“Mother,” he said. “Would you like me to help you sit up?”
“Yes, thank you, child.”
Remus rose from where he’d been watching over the fire and went to her, helping her shift into a more upright position.
Once she was comfortable and Remus had settled onto the floor beside her hammock, Anna repeated, “That is the way of the pack, City Wolf.” She’d never really made the switch from Remus’ initial pack name to the newer one. But then, Anna often seemed to have her own names for everyone.
“You disapprove of our method of conflict resolution,” she went on. “You think disagreements should be resolved through discussion, a careful weighing of both perspectives.” She chuckled at the consternation she must have seen on Remus’ face. “No, I’m not a mind reader, or whatever you wizards are calling it nowadays. But your body language just now as you were wool-gathering over the fire spoke to me as plainly as if you’d used words.”
“You’re right,” Remus admitted, figuring he was allowed to be honest about this, since she was the one who had raised the issue. “I don’t see how it’s possible to decide which person in a conflict is in the right without first hearing both sides. Alpha wasn’t just telling the two of them to stop arguing; he was clearly telling Ashmita that she was in the right, and Narun that he should step away. How can a disagreement be resolved with that approach?”
Anna raised one hand imperiously. “This is what you must understand, City Wolf: The fairness to which you aspire will never be as important to us as the unity of the pack.”
“But how does that foster unity, not giving everyone an equal say?”
The gaze of her milky blue eyes was penetrating. “Because everyone here knows Alpha’s word is law, one law for all of us. And that is our unity.”
Remus nodded. Whatever else he might think of the pack’s autocratic form of governance, that much was true: What the Alpha decreed was final, and it did tend to make boundaries crystal clear.
Anna’s expression softened, and she beckoned to him. “Come closer, young one. Sit where I can reach you.”
Remus shifted closer, resting his head against the wall next to the top end of her hammock. Anna reached out a hand and stroked his hair, a gesture that was oddly intimate but not at all unpleasant. As hard as his mind tried to push away the memory, Remus’ senses remembered Tonks doing the same, stroking his hair many evenings as he rested on the sofa in her flat, offering him quiet moments of calm away from the relentless pace of his work for the Order, during those last few weeks before everything had gone wrong.
“You’re allowed to visit back to the city, you know,” Anna said. Remus must have startled beneath her hand at that, because she chuckled and petted his hair more firmly. “It’s no secret, child, to someone who understands the language of the body that we all speak, even without knowing it. I can see it every day in your face, in the way you move. You miss someone you left behind in the city. A mate, perhaps.”
“No,” Remus said firmly. “I don’t have a mate. A partner, I mean – a girlfriend. I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“Perhaps not,” Anna agreed. “But there is someone you are constantly wishing you could be with. And that is what we generally refer to as a mate.”
“No, Mother,” Remus insisted. “It’s not like that.”
“I think it’s exactly like that,” she said. “But we shall pretend otherwise, if it suits you. Still, nothing is preventing you from visiting your friends in the city if you wish. Nothing ties you here. This is not your ground.”
“This is my ground,” Remus said, feeling stubborn on this point. He cared about the pack, each and every one of them. Even when they were mocking him. Even when they were expressing alarming sentiments about the dominance they felt werewolves deserved. Remus had come to care about all the pack’s members and he wanted them to come safely through this war. If Greyback came around trying to recruit for his cause, as Remus constantly feared he would do, then Remus damn well wanted to be here to stand in his way.
Still, maybe he really could pay a brief visit to the Weasleys without jeopardising his role here. Perhaps his commitment to the pack and his dedication to the friends he had left behind were two things that could both exist in the same world. The Mother of the pack herself had just told him that they could.
Remus looked up to find Anna’s gaze on him, assessing him. But she didn’t say a word more on the subject.
– – – – –
When they drew up the holiday duty schedule, Tonks volunteered to take Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
Savage and Dawlish immediately expressed such gratitude at being able to spend the holiday with their families that Tonks almost blurted out the truth: She wasn’t offering because she was a good, helpful colleague, she was offering because a significant portion of the people she most wanted to spend Christmas with were either dead or impossibly distant. Frankly, she would have preferred to avoid the holiday this year entirely.
There was no getting out of spending at least part of it with her parents, though. And Proudfoot offered to cover the evening of Christmas Day and Boxing Day, which meant Tonks would be able to make it to a late Christmas dinner. Her parents would have to be satisfied with that.
That evening, after the duty roster conversation, Tonks went for a long walk through the wintry countryside beyond the village, thinking maybe if she walked long enough it might settle her chaotic thoughts.
It was almost Christmas. Tonks loved Christmas – the fairy lights, the enthusiastic but frequently off-key singing, the cosy gathering-together of family and friends, the whole lot of it. Or – she’d always thought she loved it, but this year she couldn’t seem to muster any excitement. What exactly was there to feel celebratory about?
Tonks paused at the crest of a hill, tightening the clasp of her cloak at her throat against the wind, and gazed down into the next valley. The contours of the land were softened by a dusting of snow and the trees wore a delicate drapery of white along every branch. It was December already, how had it got to be December? Six months since Sirius had died, in a last bright burst of defiant glory cut off far too soon.
Tonks wondered if she would ever stop replaying that night in her mind, over and over in all its horrible detail. She hadn’t even been conscious by the point when Sirius was killed, she’d been knocked out herself by chunks of stone blasted apart by Bellatrix. And yet sometimes, still, she couldn’t stop herself from seeing again and again what the others had described, Sirius falling backwards through the ragged veil with a look of surprise on his face.
Tonks shivered, standing there poised at the top of the hill, and didn’t know whether or not it was only because of the cold wind nipping at the back of her neck.
And damn it, now she was thinking of Remus again, because Remus had lost Sirius too, and Remus, if he were here, would understand her feelings of loss and guilt and of having failed Sirius. Having Remus here to share her grief would make its weight not quite so crushing.
But Remus wasn’t here, and by his own choice.
Oh, not the mission to the werewolves, Tonks didn’t fault him for that. Remus’ mission was a duty to the Order, and Remus was a person who put duty first. Tonks understood that. She was the same way.
No, what she couldn’t come to grips with was the way he’d simply walked away from her, and tried to act like it was no big deal. Like he could take or leave everything that had gone before.
But even as he was saying those calm, logical things about how this way made more sense, his eyes told a different story. No matter what Remus said he meant, he always gave himself away with the way he looked at her.
Probably why he’d sent Tonks that cowardly letter, instead of coming to say a proper goodbye.
With a yell of frustration, Tonks plunged down the hill in front of her, her breath puffing in the cold air. Shouting felt good, so she did it again, bellowing as loudly as she could as she picked her pace up into a run.
“Everything is upside down!” Tonks shouted, and a crow in a nearby tree startled noisily, then flapped away. Tonks’ cloak, too, flapped around her like a wild thing with a mind of its own. “Everything is all backwards and utterly mixed up!” she yelled.
She ran down one hill and up the next, gasping at the sharpness of the cold air in her lungs, but pushing through the pain. She finally stopped and turned, panting, to look back the way she’d come, gazing over hills that were subdued browns and whites and greys, the muted tones of winter. The countryside around Hogsmeade was lovely, that much was true. Not breathtaking, like other parts of Scotland were, but quietly lovely.
Tonks took a deep breath of cold air, held it, let it out.
She would find a way to keep it together and keep doing her work. She would push through, no matter how frustrating it felt, keep doing absolutely as much as she could to fight back against the war and the Death Eaters and the terrible state of everything. She had to.
– – – – –
Dear Molly and Arthur,
Thank you for your invitation to stay with you at Christmas. I’ve just had a second letter from Dumbledore, reiterating the invitation, and it’s very good of you to think of me. I’m glad to be able to tell you I gratefully accept, as it looks like I’ll be able to get away here for a couple of days with no harm done.
If all goes well, I should arrive at the Burrow on the evening of the 23rd and be able to stay for three nights, if that’s all right with you. I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to your cooking, Molly, and even more to both of your companionship.
Yours,
Remus
.
Dear Tonks,
We haven’t heard a peep out of you in ages and I do worry about you. Are you taking care of yourself? I hope you’re managing to enjoy yourself up there, and not only working. Do you see Ron and Harry and Hermione very often?
I don’t know what your plans for Christmas are, but we would be delighted to have you here at the Burrow if you can find the time. We’ve just had wonderful news: Remus will be here for Christmas. Dumbledore contacted him and was able to pass along a message from us as well. I’m terribly glad we’ll get to see him. I think about him often and can’t help but worry, as I’m sure you do, too.
Anyway, dear, do let us know whether you can come for Christmas. We’d be happy to have you at any point during the holiday, for as long as you care to stay.
Warm greetings from Arthur as well,
Molly
.
Dear Molly,
Wotcher! Great to hear from you, thanks for writing. Sorry I haven’t been in touch more often – work here is keeping me pretty busy. And no, actually I barely see the kids at all, since they only come to the village when they have Hogsmeade weekends. But from what I hear, they’re doing fine.
Thanks a bunch for the invitation – really, I appreciate it – but I’m going to be on duty here both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Least seniority on the team and all that, you know how it is. I’ll hopefully have time to dash down to my parents’ place for dinner, but that’s about it. But I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas together. Give my best to the whole clan, please!
See you in the new year,
Tonks
.
Hey T,
Don’t know what plans you’ve got for Christmas (let me guess: work?) but if you want you’re very welcome to come down here for a bit. Damien and I are going to be celebrating together, which I guess makes this the first time that I’m the one hosting Christmas … Merlin, that makes me feel all strange and grown-up!
Anyway, don’t spend ALL of Christmas working, okay? If you can spare even a single evening for dinner, we’d love to have you over. I’d like you to meet Damien, too!
Hope you’re taking care of yourself, you mad Auror, you. See you soon,
Ariadne
.
Ariadne! Perfect timing.
Yes, yes, you’re not wrong in guessing I’ll be working most of Christmas. You know me… Can’t change a Horntail’s stripes, or whatever. But I’ve got the evening of the 25th off, and Boxing Day, too. So I’ll make it to (late) Christmas dinner with the parents, but that’s it for me and family Christmas this year. You can imagine how well that went down. (You know how my mum gets.) So, long story short, YES, it’d be fantastic to have an exit planned for when Mum gets going with ‘What exactly is it they have you doing up in Hogsmeade all this time and is this really the best step for your career’ and ‘Did I hear DEMENTORS attacked the village’ and ‘Whatever did happen exactly between you and Remus, Nymphadora’…
In other words, yes please, I’d love to come over on Boxing Day!
Want me to bring anything? You know my cooking is atrocious, but I can purchase a mean cake, if I do say so myself!
Looking forward to meeting your bloke. I’m sure he’s fantastic.
T
.
T, you don’t need to bring anything, just bring yourself. (Ha, doesn’t that sound so very grown-up? Look at me playing at being hostess for the holidays.) Can’t wait to see you,
A
– – – – –
Where Samhain and Imbolc had been larger celebrations, the winter solstice was a quiet affair, observed around the usual campfire outside the doorway to the lean-to.
Jack and the Alpha fetched down a Yule log, a section saved from a tree felled the previous winter and stored all year in the high crotch of a tree. Anna blessed the log, then Brighid fed it into the fire. At midnight, Anna tossed fresh juniper branches onto the fire and they all leaned in and coughed in the sharp, cleansing smoke.
The winter solstice, Remus learned, was also known here as “Mothers’ Night,” and as the three eldest females of the pack, Anna, Brighid and Ashmita were honoured tonight. Every member of the pack, even the Alpha, bent over each of their hands and received a blessing.
“May you find your peace and your heart’s desire,” were Anna’s murmured words, when Remus bent his head before her and kissed her hand.
The next morning, Remus requested an audience with the Alpha and asked permission to leave for a few days. He expected resistance, or at least questions, but the Alpha simply nodded.
Remus remembered what the Alpha had said about letting the younger members of the pack explore the outside world on his terms, because otherwise they would do it on their own, and he realised the Alpha was handling him the same way. Remus’ respect for the man went up another notch.
And so the night before Christmas Eve, Remus left the stand of trees where the pack lived and crossed the dips and rises of the moor, until he found the path back to the village where he had first arrived here. His fingers tingled in anticipation of holding his wand again. Oh, how he had missed magic.
He found the rock at the edge of the village where he’d hidden the small rucksack containing his wand and a few other possessions, all those months ago. He picked up the rucksack and stood gazing down at it in his hands, as awed at the sight as if it were a relic from another life. Then he pulled open the drawstring of the pack and withdrew his wand.
He wasn’t imagining it; a frisson of energy passed between the wand and his hand when they touched. Remus smiled at the familiar sensation. His wand, equal parts instrument and friend, had accompanied him through all the ups and downs of his life since he was eleven years old.
“Hello,” he whispered to it, then, “Lumos.”
The tip of his wand lit up brightly in the darkness and Remus felt the same simple, deep satisfaction he’d felt the first time he successfully cast that spell at the age of eleven.
Still smiling to himself, he spun on the spot and thought of the Burrow.
Chapter End Notes:
Yup, once again the solstice celebrations mentioned here draw on real solstice traditions. (Solstice = longest day of the year (summer) or shortest day of the year (winter), when the sun changes course from getting gradually higher in the sky (summer) or lower in the sky (winter). A very important moment in the year, if you live entwined with nature and depending on the natural world for survival.)
And here's the werewolf pack once again, for handy reference:
the Alpha, a male in his 40s, the pack’s leader
Anna, or the Mother, the oldest pack member, symbolic mother of all
Brighid, or Fire, the Alpha’s mate, roughly his age
Serena, or Trouble, roughly Remus’ age
Jack, or Thunderstorm, a little younger than the Alpha, Ashmita’s mate
Ashmita, or Rock Crag, Jack’s mate
Ronan, or Hardwood, young adult member of the pack, perhaps 20
Narun, or Rapids, roughly the same age
Adair, or Jump, roughly the same age
Tamara, or Blackthorn, roughly the same age
Eirwen, or Slither, a young teenager, 13 or 14
Joy, or River Run, the pack’s youngest member, 6 or 7
Hey folks, we're halfway through the story! (Well, halfway in terms of chapters, and nearly halfway in terms of word count.) Can't quite believe it.
(continue to CHAPTER 12: Christmas at the Burrow)
Summary: In which Remus and Tonks fight battles, arrest criminals, befriend werewolves, overcome inner demons and, despite it all, find themselves a happy ending. A love story, and a story of the Order years. (My Remus/Tonks epic, which has been years in the making! This is the second half of the story, set in the Half-Blood Prince year.)
Chapter 11: Midwinter Nights
Believe in me
We’re a mystery
And I’ll meet you
If you’ll meet me
–Lindsay Phillips, We’re a Mystery
“You have got to be kidding,” Tonks groaned.
Savage was back from his latest check-in at the Ministry with Robards, and had returned with the news that Scrimgeour wanted them to keep a closer eye on Dumbledore’s movements. From now on, they were to tail the headmaster discreetly whenever he left the castle.
What idiocy. Even setting aside the small matter that Tonks doubted anyone could tail Dumbledore if he didn’t choose to allow it, surely as Aurors they had more important things to do than spy on the Hogwarts headmaster? In the last week alone they’d twice had to fend off Dementors from Hogsmeade, and Tonks was feeling on edge.
“Orders are orders,” Dawlish shrugged. “Scrimgeour’ll have his reasons.”
Tonks glanced at Proudfoot, who could usually be depended on for a modicum of scepticism. But he shrugged too and said, “Dumbledore is a great wizard, nobody’s disputing that, but even he shouldn’t be acting outside of Ministry sanction. If he’s going to keep insisting on doing things his own way, we’re going to have to keep an eye on him.”
Tonks gritted her teeth, but managed not to say anything contrary aloud. She was getting better at that. When she got off duty that evening, though, she dashed by the Post Office to send off an owl to Kingsley, carrying a note that read, You hear about this latest idiocy? Shall I inform the man in question, or are you taking care of it? T.
Kingsley’s note by return owl read, Have informed the man in question. Doubt anyone could get one over on him anyway, but never hurts to be prepared. I appreciate your vigilance, as a friend of ours would say. K.
Tonks shook her head wryly as she looked down at the message in hand. These days, even their messages that weren’t officially encrypted came out sounding as if they were in code all the same.
Being a double agent for a secret organisation that battled evil might sound awesome – and in truth it was awesome, if only Tonks were ever able to stop moving long enough to step back and look at the big picture – but so often the day to day work of it amounted to nothing but frustrations and petty stumbling blocks, and the extra legwork required to clear those frustrations and stumbling blocks out of the way. Such as, for example, the illogic of her colleagues in one job being required to spy on her chief colleague in her other job, and Tonks having to find a way to navigate the space between the two.
Tonks sighed, blew a lock of mousy brown hair out of her eyes with an impatient puff of air, and sent the owl winging back to the Post Office.
A few days later, Tonks was at the tiny table in her flat, devouring a very late evening meal after a long shift, when a horrible screeching noise startled the knife and fork from her hands and sent them clattering to the tabletop. The screeching sound was coming from her Aurorlog, its alarm shrieking at high pitch.
“All the magical brainpower in the world and we can’t seem to make them go off at a normal volume,” Tonks grumbled as she shoved up her sleeve to expose her Auror wristband.
Then she caught sight of its face and flung herself up from her chair. The hand position indicated Dawlish and the colour flashing on the dial said he’d been rendered unconscious.
Tonks threw on a cloak, grabbed her broom and kicked off straight from the sill of her attic window, pointing herself in the direction that the metal arrow on her Aurorlog indicated was where Dawlish – or at least the sister Aurorlog Dawlish wore – would be found.
Tonks landed outside the Hogwarts gates to find Savage, who had been on Hogsmeade patrol duty this evening, already bending over Dawlish, who’d been on Dumbledore watch. Savage cast a strong Rennervate, and Dawlish groaned and pushed himself up from the ground as Proudfoot swooped in to join them, also broom-borne.
“What happened?” Savage demanded.
“That confounded man,” Dawlish groaned, gingerly touching the back of his head. “He knew I was there – I don’t know how he knew, I was perfectly Disillusioned, I promise you – and he Stunned me before I could react.”
Was this what they’d come to, Dumbledore and the Ministry openly attacking each other? For about half a second after Scrimgeour had started as Minister, Tonks had hoped all of that stupidity was over. Instead, the Order and the Aurors were still just as much on opposing sides as they had been under Fudge.
It was stupid, so stupid, to be at odds like this when what mattered more than anything was that they ought to all be on the same side, fighting Voldemort.
“I’m so sorry,” Tonks said to Dawlish, as she leaned in to give him a hand up from the hard ground, and she meant it more than he could know.
As the four of them walked back to the village together, Tonks wondered if they were going to make her their emissary again, send her up to the castle to complain at Dumbledore once he returned from wherever it was he’d gone. But what exactly would she say? I know you’ve got important stuff of your own to do and the last thing you need is some bumbling Ministry employee following you around, but also if you could possibly help it do you think you could please stop hexing my colleagues?
In the end, though, they decided instead to send a Floo message to Robards, who sent back a return note promising to raise the matter with Scrimgeour, who would take it up with Dumbledore.
Ministry bureaucracy at its finest. Tonks almost wished they had sent her to complain directly to Dumbledore and have done with it.
Each day that went on like this – supposed allies failing to work together, supposed Dark-wizard-catchers failing to catch anyone but the middlemen – only tightened the knot of frustration that lived constantly in the pit of Tonks’ stomach.
– – – – –
The morning after the Samhain bonfire Remus woke early, before any of the others were awake. He pushed himself up from his sleeping canvas and looked around at the sleeping pack. His breath formed vaporous ghosts in the air, even within the shelter of the lean-to.
The night’s dreams had been a confusion of images and were already fading, but a last sensory impression remained, a feeling of being cocooned in a warm bed in a cosy flat – the London flat of a certain bright-haired Auror, a place Remus had come to know well the previous year, and which he had all too quickly learned to associate with safety and warmth and a sense of belonging. He pushed such thoughts firmly away during his waking hours, but his dreaming mind found treacherous ways of slipping past his barriers.
Why did his mind slip away to Tonks the moment he left it unguarded? Remus had told himself over and over to let go. He had told Tonks, too, that there could be nothing more between them. So why couldn’t he seem to convince himself of the same?
The loss of James and Lily, even the loss of Sirius – those were hard, dull aches that seemed to have been with Remus so long, they’d become simply a part of his being. They were no less painful for that, but at least their ache was familiar.
The absence of Tonks was different, sharp and immediate, and if Remus was honest with himself, he knew exactly why: Unlike all the others Remus had lost, Tonks was still alive. Remus could see her and speak to her any time, if only he would allow it of himself.
But he couldn’t allow it.
All he could do was to keep setting those thoughts aside, and setting them aside, over and over in the hope that one day his attempted forgetting might finally take hold.
As November progressed and the cold grew deeper, it became clear to Remus that the peaceful solidarity of Samhain had only briefly patched over a growing sense of discontent within the pack. The younger ones were restless, and more than once Remus overheard snatches of whispered conversation amongst them, as they compared their own Alpha’s ways with rumours they’d picked up about freedoms allowed in other packs. Their dissatisfaction was never expressed overtly, of course, not here within the hierarchy of the pack. But as the winter weather deepened, the young ones grew increasingly, quietly, disconcertingly sullen.
Narun, Adair and Tamara, especially, had a tendency to draw away from the others, talking intently amongst themselves but trailing off when any of the older adults came near. Another time, Remus stumbled across a heated conversation between young Narun and Jack, who was nearly the Alpha’s age, both their voices quiet but angry.
The Alpha now grouped the pack members differently when he sent them out to hunt and gather, pairing young ones with older ones to accompany them, rather than allowing two or more of the young ones to go off together unsupervised. But the whispered conversations and flare-ups of disagreement continued.
One day, Remus was sent out with Ashmita and Adair – both an older partner and a younger one, he noted wryly, since he himself didn’t quite count as either within the structures of the pack – and he witnessed firsthand as Adair attempted to convince Ashmita of his reasoning.
“But think of Mother,” Adair pressed. “She’s advanced in years, yet she has to live out here and sleep on the cold ground, eating nothing but rabbits. As our elder, doesn’t she deserve more? Doesn’t she deserve comfort, real prey, real respect?”
Ashmita shut him down instantly. “You have no idea what you’re talking about, idiot child,” she snapped, baring her teeth at Adair in a startlingly wolf-like way, and that was the end of that conversation.
But still, still, a disquieting discontent continued to roil beneath the daily life of the pack.
At least they all still came together at the full moon. Remus was never precisely glad when the moon reached its fullest phase and tore his body apart, but he’d rarely felt as relieved on the morning after a full moon as he did now, watching the pack drift about the camp, their bodies still recovering but their interactions with each other looser, less strained, thanks to the sense of solidarity that came from a night of running free together.
For the first time, Remus truly wished he could retain more than the vaguest of sense memories from the “wolf mind” he was forced to inhabit for the duration of a full moon night. He would have liked to know what had transpired between their wolf selves to return this sense of truce to the pack. Who had play-fought, who had worked together to bring down prey? What alliances had been forged or reinforced in the course of the night?
He didn’t ask those questions aloud, though. The current calm felt too delicate.
Remus did, however, get a chance to discuss the growing tensions in the pack, while out hunting with Jack a few days after the full moon. Jack was the one who’d first given Remus his pack name, “Quiet,” and Jack was diametrically everything Remus was not – brawny, loud and forthright.
Jack had also, inexplicably, taken a shine to Remus, with a brotherly fondness that had gradually become evident behind the teasing. He was the one who’d suggested they hunt together this afternoon. Remus was hopeless with a bow and arrow and suspected he always would be, at least without the benefit of a wand to charm the arrow straight, but Jack seemed determined to get Remus to the level of being at least passable at the basics.
They crunched across the frosted ground. Remus was wrapped in his cloak, as well as a crude waistcoat of rabbit pelts Serena had fashioned for him out of pity when she saw that he didn’t have anywhere near adequate clothing for a winter of living out of doors.
Jack was relentlessly cheerful, clearly relishing the physical exertion and the scent of snow on the air. Once he’d got past the initial brash impression, Remus had found he appreciated Jack’s plainspoken manner. He could count on Jack to tell it like it was, and not be offended by questions.
“The younger ones in the pack seem restless,” Remus ventured, as they crunched along.
Jack shrugged. “Young ones are always restless.”
Since Jack didn’t seem offended by this line of questioning, Remus pushed on. “They’ve heard the rumours about Greyback and the kind of life he’s supposedly offering, and they’re tempted.”
“Well, that’s the fallacy of youth, isn’t it? Thinking things are always better somewhere else.”
“You aren’t worried they’ll decide to join him?”
To Remus’ surprise, Jack laughed. “Pack affiliations shift, Quiet. If any of the young ones are desperate to go joining Greyback’s pack – and the more fools them, if they are – then nothing’s stopping them.”
Remus stared at him and almost tripped over a tussock of grass. “But – what happens to the pack, if its entire younger generation leaves? You would let that happen?”
“Quiet. City Wolf. Understand one thing. I am not letting anything happen. I am not making anything happen. It is Alpha’s to decide how to run his pack. And I promise you, Alpha hasn’t got where he is by being a fool. Believe that, even if you won’t believe anything else we keep telling you.”
Jack tossed a wolfish grin Remus’ way. Then, before Remus could think what to answer, Jack sighted a hare a hundred yards ahead of them, gave a shout and bounded after it, and philosophical concerns gave way for the time being to an archery demonstration.
Remus, too, came to find these days on the open moor invigorating, as he grew more accustomed to the outdoor life and the cold. As late autumn slipped into the first cool breath of winter, Remus spent many days out of doors, hunting with Jack or the others.
He also slipped away when he could to his “quiet spot,” as the others teasingly called it, the bit of the moor where the ground was uneven and water trickled out of the exposed earth. The ground was frozen now, with solid ice where before there had been water, but it was still pleasant to be alone there in the quiet of the winter moor.
It was near the end of November, on a day when Remus had seized one such rare moment to himself, enveloped in blissful silence under the wide, white sky, when a dove-coloured barn owl swooped down and startled him.
Surprised, Remus reached out one hand automatically to untie the scroll the owl offered him on an outstretched leg. This duty discharged, the owl hooted agreeably and rose again to turn lazy circles above Remus’ head.
Dear Remus, he read, in Dumbledore’s unmistakeable spiky script.
This owl has instructions to deliver the letter only when you are alone and unobserved. The last thing I would wish would be to compromise your mission, but at the same time, I would be remiss if I failed to make contact at all, when you have been away so long. I hope this approach to the matter may serve as a happy medium.
I do hope this letter finds you well, Remus, hale and hearty still. Please do not compromise your own safety and well-being for the sake of your mission.
Only if these first queries can be answered in the affirmative do I proceed to the next ones: How does your mission proceed? Do you feel it to be worthwhile that you remain? If there is any information you wish to share that is not too sensitive for communication via owl, I will be its happy recipient.
Now, to the third reason for my writing. Molly has impressed upon me in no uncertain terms that if there is any way physically possible in this world for you to attend Christmas at the Burrow this year, then your presence there is most ardently desired. If you think your new acquaintances can spare you for a few days, the Weasleys would be very glad to see you.
And if you are indeed able to get away, I myself would be grateful for the opportunity to exchange a few words on your progress so far.
I have enclosed additional parchment and a quill with this letter, should you wish to reply by return owl.
Humbly yours,
Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore
Well. Remus looked again at the letter in his hand, then up at the grey-white November sky. Then he laughed out loud, to the consternation of the owl still circling him.
Of all the things that were absurd about his current life, this surely ranked high: to be standing in the middle of the open moor in a rabbit-fur waistcoat and old clothes that grew more tattered by the month, catching a few precious moments away from the tumult of living in small wooden lean-to on a remote moor with a dozen werewolves as winter approached, and then to receive, delivered to his hand by owl post, such a gentlemanly invitation from Albus Dumbledore.
Remus calmed his slightly hysterical mirth and returned his attention to the scroll in his hand.
Once fully unfurled, he found it did indeed include a second, blank piece of parchment rolled inside the first, with a small self-inking quill dangling from a ribbon threaded through a corner of the parchment. Small, that is, but not so small that it would require magical expansion in order to be usable, because Dumbledore of course knew Remus wouldn’t have his wand with him. The man really did think of everything.
Dear Professor Dumbledore, Remus wrote, unable to address this professor he so respected and admired as “Albus,” even after all these years.
It is very good of you to seek me out – I appreciate it greatly. I appreciate your owl’s discretion as well.
And it is good, I think, that you have waited until now to ask these questions. In my first weeks here, I might have been tempted to answer that it is all for nothing and I might as well slink back to London in defeat. Now, I find I don’t believe that any longer. I am making inroads here, if slowly, gaining trust as well as improving my own understanding. I still don’t know that I can promise to do any good by being here, but neither do I think my presence will do any harm. If it is amenable to you, I will continue on here for a while yet.
I have little concrete information to report so far. F.G. continues to make the promises we know he has been making all along. Many even beyond his direct sphere of influence are enamoured of what he preaches, the younger ones especially. Yet there are some who choose to remain neutral, who do not feel this to be their fight and who are happy with their lives as they are. Still, at present there are few, if any, who would actively take our side. Indeed, from their perspective, there is little reason to.
As to the other point you raised, please tell Molly nothing would please me more, but I shall have to see whether it is possible. Perhaps you could send another owl in a fortnight or so, and I shall try to have an answer by then. I hate to impose on you this way, but at the moment my options for communication are limited.
If a time away from here proves to be possible, I would of course be very glad to meet with you and discuss in more detail what I’ve learned so far.
Yours most sincerely,
Remus Lupin
Remus rolled up the letter, tied it and sent it off again with the owl, all with a strange sense of unreality. The very thought of London or the Burrow, of Molly and Arthur and their family, seemed like something out of another life. Even Christmas sounded slightly foreign, like an unfamiliar custom from a country he’d once visited.
But sooner than he would have expected, Remus got his answer on the possibility of leaving the pack to visit the Burrow, and it came from an unexpected quarter.
It was two days after a full moon and the December wind was biting, finding its way in through every chink and crack in the lean-to walls. Remus felt the chill acutely, and it seemed as though he’d been living with a slight chest cold for about as long as he could remember, although in reality it had probably only been a week or two.
The Alpha had directed Remus to stay back at the camp to watch over elderly Anna. Remus took this, cautiously, as a sign of trust, since this was the first time the Alpha had assigned this important role to Remus alone, rather than pairing him with another member of the pack.
As Anna dozed in her hammock, which now hung between two posts within the lean-to, Remus tended the fire and pondered that morning’s events.
A disagreement had flared between Ashmita and Narun, sudden, sharp and angry, as the pack were waking for the day. Open conflict was exceedingly rare, which made it all the more of a shock to see tiny Ashmita and young Narun standing almost nose to nose, their voices pitched low but fierce.
Before Remus could parse what their argument was about, it was over, the Alpha stepping between Ashmita and Narun and breaking up the spat with a few short words uttered in his most dangerous growl. No discussion, no arbitration, simply a swift and final judgement. Ashmita had bowed her head deferentially and nodded; Narun had slunk away, the tail he didn’t have in human form almost visibly tucked between his legs. It was clear to see the Alpha’s ruling had been in Ashmita’s favour.
“That is the way of the pack,” Anna’s voice said behind Remus now. He whirled around to see her wizened face peering at him over the edge of the hammock.
“Mother,” he said. “Would you like me to help you sit up?”
“Yes, thank you, child.”
Remus rose from where he’d been watching over the fire and went to her, helping her shift into a more upright position.
Once she was comfortable and Remus had settled onto the floor beside her hammock, Anna repeated, “That is the way of the pack, City Wolf.” She’d never really made the switch from Remus’ initial pack name to the newer one. But then, Anna often seemed to have her own names for everyone.
“You disapprove of our method of conflict resolution,” she went on. “You think disagreements should be resolved through discussion, a careful weighing of both perspectives.” She chuckled at the consternation she must have seen on Remus’ face. “No, I’m not a mind reader, or whatever you wizards are calling it nowadays. But your body language just now as you were wool-gathering over the fire spoke to me as plainly as if you’d used words.”
“You’re right,” Remus admitted, figuring he was allowed to be honest about this, since she was the one who had raised the issue. “I don’t see how it’s possible to decide which person in a conflict is in the right without first hearing both sides. Alpha wasn’t just telling the two of them to stop arguing; he was clearly telling Ashmita that she was in the right, and Narun that he should step away. How can a disagreement be resolved with that approach?”
Anna raised one hand imperiously. “This is what you must understand, City Wolf: The fairness to which you aspire will never be as important to us as the unity of the pack.”
“But how does that foster unity, not giving everyone an equal say?”
The gaze of her milky blue eyes was penetrating. “Because everyone here knows Alpha’s word is law, one law for all of us. And that is our unity.”
Remus nodded. Whatever else he might think of the pack’s autocratic form of governance, that much was true: What the Alpha decreed was final, and it did tend to make boundaries crystal clear.
Anna’s expression softened, and she beckoned to him. “Come closer, young one. Sit where I can reach you.”
Remus shifted closer, resting his head against the wall next to the top end of her hammock. Anna reached out a hand and stroked his hair, a gesture that was oddly intimate but not at all unpleasant. As hard as his mind tried to push away the memory, Remus’ senses remembered Tonks doing the same, stroking his hair many evenings as he rested on the sofa in her flat, offering him quiet moments of calm away from the relentless pace of his work for the Order, during those last few weeks before everything had gone wrong.
“You’re allowed to visit back to the city, you know,” Anna said. Remus must have startled beneath her hand at that, because she chuckled and petted his hair more firmly. “It’s no secret, child, to someone who understands the language of the body that we all speak, even without knowing it. I can see it every day in your face, in the way you move. You miss someone you left behind in the city. A mate, perhaps.”
“No,” Remus said firmly. “I don’t have a mate. A partner, I mean – a girlfriend. I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“Perhaps not,” Anna agreed. “But there is someone you are constantly wishing you could be with. And that is what we generally refer to as a mate.”
“No, Mother,” Remus insisted. “It’s not like that.”
“I think it’s exactly like that,” she said. “But we shall pretend otherwise, if it suits you. Still, nothing is preventing you from visiting your friends in the city if you wish. Nothing ties you here. This is not your ground.”
“This is my ground,” Remus said, feeling stubborn on this point. He cared about the pack, each and every one of them. Even when they were mocking him. Even when they were expressing alarming sentiments about the dominance they felt werewolves deserved. Remus had come to care about all the pack’s members and he wanted them to come safely through this war. If Greyback came around trying to recruit for his cause, as Remus constantly feared he would do, then Remus damn well wanted to be here to stand in his way.
Still, maybe he really could pay a brief visit to the Weasleys without jeopardising his role here. Perhaps his commitment to the pack and his dedication to the friends he had left behind were two things that could both exist in the same world. The Mother of the pack herself had just told him that they could.
Remus looked up to find Anna’s gaze on him, assessing him. But she didn’t say a word more on the subject.
– – – – –
When they drew up the holiday duty schedule, Tonks volunteered to take Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
Savage and Dawlish immediately expressed such gratitude at being able to spend the holiday with their families that Tonks almost blurted out the truth: She wasn’t offering because she was a good, helpful colleague, she was offering because a significant portion of the people she most wanted to spend Christmas with were either dead or impossibly distant. Frankly, she would have preferred to avoid the holiday this year entirely.
There was no getting out of spending at least part of it with her parents, though. And Proudfoot offered to cover the evening of Christmas Day and Boxing Day, which meant Tonks would be able to make it to a late Christmas dinner. Her parents would have to be satisfied with that.
That evening, after the duty roster conversation, Tonks went for a long walk through the wintry countryside beyond the village, thinking maybe if she walked long enough it might settle her chaotic thoughts.
It was almost Christmas. Tonks loved Christmas – the fairy lights, the enthusiastic but frequently off-key singing, the cosy gathering-together of family and friends, the whole lot of it. Or – she’d always thought she loved it, but this year she couldn’t seem to muster any excitement. What exactly was there to feel celebratory about?
Tonks paused at the crest of a hill, tightening the clasp of her cloak at her throat against the wind, and gazed down into the next valley. The contours of the land were softened by a dusting of snow and the trees wore a delicate drapery of white along every branch. It was December already, how had it got to be December? Six months since Sirius had died, in a last bright burst of defiant glory cut off far too soon.
Tonks wondered if she would ever stop replaying that night in her mind, over and over in all its horrible detail. She hadn’t even been conscious by the point when Sirius was killed, she’d been knocked out herself by chunks of stone blasted apart by Bellatrix. And yet sometimes, still, she couldn’t stop herself from seeing again and again what the others had described, Sirius falling backwards through the ragged veil with a look of surprise on his face.
Tonks shivered, standing there poised at the top of the hill, and didn’t know whether or not it was only because of the cold wind nipping at the back of her neck.
And damn it, now she was thinking of Remus again, because Remus had lost Sirius too, and Remus, if he were here, would understand her feelings of loss and guilt and of having failed Sirius. Having Remus here to share her grief would make its weight not quite so crushing.
But Remus wasn’t here, and by his own choice.
Oh, not the mission to the werewolves, Tonks didn’t fault him for that. Remus’ mission was a duty to the Order, and Remus was a person who put duty first. Tonks understood that. She was the same way.
No, what she couldn’t come to grips with was the way he’d simply walked away from her, and tried to act like it was no big deal. Like he could take or leave everything that had gone before.
But even as he was saying those calm, logical things about how this way made more sense, his eyes told a different story. No matter what Remus said he meant, he always gave himself away with the way he looked at her.
Probably why he’d sent Tonks that cowardly letter, instead of coming to say a proper goodbye.
With a yell of frustration, Tonks plunged down the hill in front of her, her breath puffing in the cold air. Shouting felt good, so she did it again, bellowing as loudly as she could as she picked her pace up into a run.
“Everything is upside down!” Tonks shouted, and a crow in a nearby tree startled noisily, then flapped away. Tonks’ cloak, too, flapped around her like a wild thing with a mind of its own. “Everything is all backwards and utterly mixed up!” she yelled.
She ran down one hill and up the next, gasping at the sharpness of the cold air in her lungs, but pushing through the pain. She finally stopped and turned, panting, to look back the way she’d come, gazing over hills that were subdued browns and whites and greys, the muted tones of winter. The countryside around Hogsmeade was lovely, that much was true. Not breathtaking, like other parts of Scotland were, but quietly lovely.
Tonks took a deep breath of cold air, held it, let it out.
She would find a way to keep it together and keep doing her work. She would push through, no matter how frustrating it felt, keep doing absolutely as much as she could to fight back against the war and the Death Eaters and the terrible state of everything. She had to.
– – – – –
Dear Molly and Arthur,
Thank you for your invitation to stay with you at Christmas. I’ve just had a second letter from Dumbledore, reiterating the invitation, and it’s very good of you to think of me. I’m glad to be able to tell you I gratefully accept, as it looks like I’ll be able to get away here for a couple of days with no harm done.
If all goes well, I should arrive at the Burrow on the evening of the 23rd and be able to stay for three nights, if that’s all right with you. I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to your cooking, Molly, and even more to both of your companionship.
Yours,
Remus
.
Dear Tonks,
We haven’t heard a peep out of you in ages and I do worry about you. Are you taking care of yourself? I hope you’re managing to enjoy yourself up there, and not only working. Do you see Ron and Harry and Hermione very often?
I don’t know what your plans for Christmas are, but we would be delighted to have you here at the Burrow if you can find the time. We’ve just had wonderful news: Remus will be here for Christmas. Dumbledore contacted him and was able to pass along a message from us as well. I’m terribly glad we’ll get to see him. I think about him often and can’t help but worry, as I’m sure you do, too.
Anyway, dear, do let us know whether you can come for Christmas. We’d be happy to have you at any point during the holiday, for as long as you care to stay.
Warm greetings from Arthur as well,
Molly
.
Dear Molly,
Wotcher! Great to hear from you, thanks for writing. Sorry I haven’t been in touch more often – work here is keeping me pretty busy. And no, actually I barely see the kids at all, since they only come to the village when they have Hogsmeade weekends. But from what I hear, they’re doing fine.
Thanks a bunch for the invitation – really, I appreciate it – but I’m going to be on duty here both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Least seniority on the team and all that, you know how it is. I’ll hopefully have time to dash down to my parents’ place for dinner, but that’s about it. But I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas together. Give my best to the whole clan, please!
See you in the new year,
Tonks
.
Hey T,
Don’t know what plans you’ve got for Christmas (let me guess: work?) but if you want you’re very welcome to come down here for a bit. Damien and I are going to be celebrating together, which I guess makes this the first time that I’m the one hosting Christmas … Merlin, that makes me feel all strange and grown-up!
Anyway, don’t spend ALL of Christmas working, okay? If you can spare even a single evening for dinner, we’d love to have you over. I’d like you to meet Damien, too!
Hope you’re taking care of yourself, you mad Auror, you. See you soon,
Ariadne
.
Ariadne! Perfect timing.
Yes, yes, you’re not wrong in guessing I’ll be working most of Christmas. You know me… Can’t change a Horntail’s stripes, or whatever. But I’ve got the evening of the 25th off, and Boxing Day, too. So I’ll make it to (late) Christmas dinner with the parents, but that’s it for me and family Christmas this year. You can imagine how well that went down. (You know how my mum gets.) So, long story short, YES, it’d be fantastic to have an exit planned for when Mum gets going with ‘What exactly is it they have you doing up in Hogsmeade all this time and is this really the best step for your career’ and ‘Did I hear DEMENTORS attacked the village’ and ‘Whatever did happen exactly between you and Remus, Nymphadora’…
In other words, yes please, I’d love to come over on Boxing Day!
Want me to bring anything? You know my cooking is atrocious, but I can purchase a mean cake, if I do say so myself!
Looking forward to meeting your bloke. I’m sure he’s fantastic.
T
.
T, you don’t need to bring anything, just bring yourself. (Ha, doesn’t that sound so very grown-up? Look at me playing at being hostess for the holidays.) Can’t wait to see you,
A
– – – – –
Where Samhain and Imbolc had been larger celebrations, the winter solstice was a quiet affair, observed around the usual campfire outside the doorway to the lean-to.
Jack and the Alpha fetched down a Yule log, a section saved from a tree felled the previous winter and stored all year in the high crotch of a tree. Anna blessed the log, then Brighid fed it into the fire. At midnight, Anna tossed fresh juniper branches onto the fire and they all leaned in and coughed in the sharp, cleansing smoke.
The winter solstice, Remus learned, was also known here as “Mothers’ Night,” and as the three eldest females of the pack, Anna, Brighid and Ashmita were honoured tonight. Every member of the pack, even the Alpha, bent over each of their hands and received a blessing.
“May you find your peace and your heart’s desire,” were Anna’s murmured words, when Remus bent his head before her and kissed her hand.
The next morning, Remus requested an audience with the Alpha and asked permission to leave for a few days. He expected resistance, or at least questions, but the Alpha simply nodded.
Remus remembered what the Alpha had said about letting the younger members of the pack explore the outside world on his terms, because otherwise they would do it on their own, and he realised the Alpha was handling him the same way. Remus’ respect for the man went up another notch.
And so the night before Christmas Eve, Remus left the stand of trees where the pack lived and crossed the dips and rises of the moor, until he found the path back to the village where he had first arrived here. His fingers tingled in anticipation of holding his wand again. Oh, how he had missed magic.
He found the rock at the edge of the village where he’d hidden the small rucksack containing his wand and a few other possessions, all those months ago. He picked up the rucksack and stood gazing down at it in his hands, as awed at the sight as if it were a relic from another life. Then he pulled open the drawstring of the pack and withdrew his wand.
He wasn’t imagining it; a frisson of energy passed between the wand and his hand when they touched. Remus smiled at the familiar sensation. His wand, equal parts instrument and friend, had accompanied him through all the ups and downs of his life since he was eleven years old.
“Hello,” he whispered to it, then, “Lumos.”
The tip of his wand lit up brightly in the darkness and Remus felt the same simple, deep satisfaction he’d felt the first time he successfully cast that spell at the age of eleven.
Still smiling to himself, he spun on the spot and thought of the Burrow.
Chapter End Notes:
Yup, once again the solstice celebrations mentioned here draw on real solstice traditions. (Solstice = longest day of the year (summer) or shortest day of the year (winter), when the sun changes course from getting gradually higher in the sky (summer) or lower in the sky (winter). A very important moment in the year, if you live entwined with nature and depending on the natural world for survival.)
And here's the werewolf pack once again, for handy reference:
the Alpha, a male in his 40s, the pack’s leader
Anna, or the Mother, the oldest pack member, symbolic mother of all
Brighid, or Fire, the Alpha’s mate, roughly his age
Serena, or Trouble, roughly Remus’ age
Jack, or Thunderstorm, a little younger than the Alpha, Ashmita’s mate
Ashmita, or Rock Crag, Jack’s mate
Ronan, or Hardwood, young adult member of the pack, perhaps 20
Narun, or Rapids, roughly the same age
Adair, or Jump, roughly the same age
Tamara, or Blackthorn, roughly the same age
Eirwen, or Slither, a young teenager, 13 or 14
Joy, or River Run, the pack’s youngest member, 6 or 7
Hey folks, we're halfway through the story! (Well, halfway in terms of chapters, and nearly halfway in terms of word count.) Can't quite believe it.
(continue to CHAPTER 12: Christmas at the Burrow)